Negi Springfield
Negi Springfield (ネギ・スプリングフィールド, Negi Supuringufīrudo) is a character from Negima!: Magister Negi Magi by Ken Akamatsu and a protagonist in Kuro Arashi: The Black Storm. He is a mage in training to become a magister magi and the homeroom and English teacher of class 3-A. Negi is a kind-hearted boy, with a very optimistic outlook toward life. Though he is just ten years old, he at times shows maturity far beyond his years much to the amazement and admiration of his older and rowdier students. On an emotional level, Negi is still considered as a child and he often does not realize the full extent of the feelings of the girls around him. He is also naive in many aspects of the world and his normally optimistic outlook on things does put him at a disadvantage when a more realistic approach is needed. Negi cares for all the girls in his class, and out of his own interpretation of his duties as a teacher, and the parting advice from his cousin Nekane Springfield, and an overall liking of people in general, he often goes beyond what most other teachers would consider an acceptable level of involvement in the affairs of his students. Biography Early Life Negi Springfield is the son of master mage Nagi Springfield, famously known as the legendary "Thousand Master" and Arika Anarchia Entheofushia, the last Queen of Vespertatia, who fought alongside Nagi in the Great Mage War and was instrumental in ending it. Early in his childhood, Negi came to live with his older cousin (whom he calls older sister, since they grew up together) Nekane Springfield in a small village in the mountains of England. Even as a small child, he lived pretty much alone in the guest house, with Nekane coming to care for him during her breaks while studying in Wales. While there, he befriended Anya Cocolova a little girl about a year older than him who helped him study magic, and even gave him his first training wand. Negi spent much of his time getting into trouble, hoping that if he were to get into enough trouble, the Thousand Master would come to save him. His antics ranged from being chased by large dogs to nearly drowning in a river. When Negi was four years old, his wish came true, with unfortunate results. A horde of demons appeared and attacked his village. Just as a demon was about to attack Negi, the Thousand Master appeared just in time to save Negi from receiving a fatal punch from the demon. With a few strikes and a powerful spell, he destroyed all of the demons, but the village was already in ruins and most of the villagers had been already petrified. When the fighting was over, the Thousand Master saw Negi and, before parting, he left Negi his staff and a few words. After the incident Negi, Nekane, and Anya were moved to a village of magicians in Wales, where Negi immersed himself into his studies. He graduated from magic school at the age of nine at the top of his class of only five students to graduate that year. His certificate of graduation read that to become a magister magi he must take on the assignment of teacher in Japan as part of his training. Class 3-A : Main article: Class 3-A The Headmaster sent Negi to Mahora Academy, a school run by the dean Konoemon Konoe, who was a close friend of the headmaster. As part of his assignment Negi is now the homeroom and English teacher of class 3-A of Mahora Academy Middle School Negi's teaching career at Mahora Middle School got off to an extremely rocky start. At the start he seemed to have exceptionally bad luck with Asuna Kagurazaka, the first of his students he met as he entered Mahora and also a student whom he not only managed to get on the bad side of before he even began, but discovered that he had to live with as well. However, over time, Negi managed to prove his worth as a teacher to the class, showing them, much to their amazement and sometimes shock, that his maturity, reliability and natural charm are far beyond those of the typical adult, let alone a young naive ten-year-old boy. Negi came to teach class 2-A late in the school year, and as the girls prepared to take their exams, Negi was given his final test to become a full-fledged teacher at Mahora Academy. The test was deceptively simple: Ensure that all the girls in 2-A passed their final exam. Unfortunately, class 2-A was the bottom-ranked class in the school, particularly the five lowest-scoring students in the class, which he had gathered into a study group dubbed the Baka Rangers. Library Island As Negi searched for ways to improve the grades of his students, the Baka Rangers discovered a legend about a magic book in the Academy's main library, which was supposed to make anyone who used it smarter. The Baka Rangers, along with their classmates in the Library Exploration Club, decided to make a journey into the depths of the library to find it. However, the library proved to be far more than anyone would sensibly imagine a library to be. With Negi's magic voluntarily sealed away, the Baka Rangers, despite their additional studying and surprisingly formidable physical abilities, found themselves trapped in the deepest underworld of the library, where Negi convinced them to do some more real studying while they searched for a way out. While studying, they were attacked by the guardian of the book. The Rangers managed to not only get the book from it, but also found a way out with the help of an express elevator to the surface. But because of problems with the elevator, they had to sacrifice the book to get back to the surface and back to school, where they were just in time to take the test. After some mishaps with the scoring, class 2-A came out on the top of the score sheet and all the students graduated into class 3-A. Evangeline A.K. McDowell As Negi began the new year by finding himself in a battle against two of his own students, a vampire named Evangeline A.K. McDowell and her android partner Chachamaru Karakuri, which was an impossible fight for him as he had to deal with their teamwork that never allowed him a chance to chant his spells let alone use them. At the same time, Albert Chamomile, a shady friend of Negi's from Wales, arrived with what he figured was the perfect solution: get a partner of his own. However, Negi refused to get any more of his students involved in the battle. So he tried to take Evangeline alone once again in a valiant effort, actually holding his own with his collection of antique magical items, but eventually being overwhelmed by Evangeline and Chachamaru's abilities. The battle seemed lost for Negi until Chamo and Asuna saved him. Chamo convinced Negi that the only way they can win is to form a temporary contract, or a pactio, with Asuna. With Asuna's help, and a timely sneeze, Negi managed to defeat Evangeline. Kyoto Field Trip After the battle with Evangeline, Negi discovered from her that his father used to spend time in the Kansai area, particularly around Kyoto. At the suggestion of Asuna and Chachamaru, he scheduled a four-day class field trip to Kyoto. Unfortunately, the Headmaster informed him of bad politics between the Kanto Magic Association, which he was the head of, and the Kansai Magic Association over the use of Western-style Magic. A condition for allowing Negi and his class to go on the trip was that he was tasked with safely delivering a letter to the head of the Kansai Magic Association, and beware of people who would want to interfere with the affairs of the Kanto and Kansai Magic Associations. However, his students managed to complicate matters, from the possibility of Setsuna Sakurazaki being a Kansai spy, an actual Kansai rogue trying to kidnap Konoka Konoe, and Nodoka Miyazaki confessing to Negi that she liked him. Other complications would also arise as Kazumi Asakuranearly revealed his secret to the world and then scheming with Chamo to get the entire class embroiled in a game to get the class to make contracts with Negi. In the end, Nodoka managed to win the game, with help of Yue Ayase tripping Nodoka and her landing on Negi's lips. However, the group of Kansai rogues were still after Konoka and her slowly awakening powers. The enemy managed to infiltrate and attack the castle, kidnapping Konoka and petrifying everyone inside, along with Konoka's father, Eishun Konoe. The Kansai rogues used Konoka's latent magic power to summon a powerful demon. Negi, despite using all of the powers he could, couldn't damage the powerful demon and still had his hands full with another powerful mage named Fate Averruncus. The chance of victory seemed non-existent as Negi was face to face with two undefeatable opponents. Only with the intervention of Evangeline and Chachamaru was the demon able to be destroyed and forced the mage Fate to escape. Return to Mahora After the Kyoto incident, Negi feels that he was still lacking the strength to protect those who are important to him. To improve himself, he enters an apprenticeship under Evangeline in order to learn magical combat skills, and asks Ku Fei to teach him martial arts, particularly Chinese kenpo. During this period, a man named Graf Hermann came to the campus, kidnapping many of the students that had helped Negi in Kyoto, as well as Chizuru Naba, who had been uninvolved in the fighting. In Chizuru's dorm, Negi also discovered Kotaro Inugami, a boy whom Negi had fought with in Kyoto, who had made his way to Mahora to challenge Negi to a rematch. Kotaro had been injured and also lost some of his Inugami abilities after crossing paths with Herrman. Kotarou was eventually found and taken care of by Chizuru and Natsumi. Kotarou later gave Negi a demon-sealing bottle, stolen from Herrman, and went with him to battle Herrman and his minions, to rescue the girls he had kidnapped. During the fight, Herrman revealed that he was actually a demon, the same one who destroyed Negi's home village and petrified its people six years ago. While Negi's students managed to free themselves, Negi was able to defeat Herrman with a powerful spell that Evangeline had taught him earlier. Mahora Festival : Main article: Mahorafest In late June, Mahora Academy held the Mahora Festival, a massive, world-famous school festival celebrated by all schools. During the preparations, Negi was formally introduced to the other magic teachers and students who also attended the academy, and was told a surprising secret: Every twenty-two years, the World Tree, a mountain-sized tree that dominates the skyline of the entire campus, would glow with power around the same time the festival was held. For some reason, the glow was coming a year early. This glow signified a sharp rise in the magical energy in the area, and at certain points around the tree, even a simple confession of love would have the same effect as a powerful charm or curse The mages of Mahora had to make it their duty to ensure that no such confessions took place in those areas during the festival. Unfortunately, Negi also had a very full schedule with seeing to his students, many of whom were counting on seeing him at the various events their extracurricular clubs were hosting, not to mention a fighting tournament at the festival that both Kotaro and Evangeline were expecting him to enter. The events of Mahorafest were enjoed by Negi and all of his students (with Negi using the Cassiopeia to attend everything his students had invited him to). He would also see his other students at their club activities, patrol the festival for confessions, try out for the tournament, and even help Chisame win a secret cosplay contest, all within the first day. The second day, Negi participates in the Mahora Fighting Tournament, along with Takamichi Takahataand many of his own students. Between his training by Ku Fei and Evangeline, and his own intelligence, Negi makes it to the finals. However, Negi lost in the final match to Alberio Imma, a compatriot of Negi's father Nagi, who used his pactio artifact to become Nagi as he was shortly before Negi's birth. After the tournament, Negi discovers that the tournament is part of a plan by Chao Lingshen to expose the "Inner World" of mages, demons, and monsters to the "Outer World." To this effect, she has leaked images and video of the tournament all over the world. Thanks to his impressive showing in the tournament, Negi becomes an almost instant celebrity. For the rest of the second day, Negi avoids the inquisitive reporters and others by using the age-disguising pills to make himself appear to be a teenage version of himself. After hearing from Ku Fei that Chao plans to drop out of the Academy and return home after the festival, he confronts her to find out why she is trying to expose the mages, as well as her reasons for leaving. Chao responds by challenging him to a battle. If he wins, she'll give up her plans. but if he loses, he'll have to join her. Either way, she says that she'll also tell him the truth in the process. Chao gains the upper hand in the fight, unti Setsuna and Kaede Nagase intervene. They grab Negi and make their way to the school's roof, where Chao is ambushed by the entire class... who throw her a surprise going-away party. After the party, Chao leaves, with the situation unresolved. At the end of the night, Negi gathers his partners, as well as Kaede, Ku Fei, and Chisame, and brings them all to Evangeline's Resort, to figure out how they're going to deal with Chao's plans. Unfortunately, when they leave to begin the final day of the festival, they find that they've fallen into a trap. Chao had rigged the Cassiopeia watch that Negi has to activate on its own during the third day of the Festival and send him into the future. There they see how Chao's plans play out and in due time return back to present day, armed with that knowledge in hopes of thwarting the Timesnatcher. Mages vs. Mars : Main article: Mages vs. Mars Forewarned with the knowledge of how Chao pulled off her plan, Chamo and the girls allow Negi to rest while they go off to set up Negi's plan to stop her: using an old store of weapons designed to stop magically-empowered constructs, they arm a thousand of the festivalgoers under the pretense of the festival's new main event: A "staged" battle between mages and the Martian robot army, Mages vs. Mars. However, the presence of a second army is countered by Chao, who simply launches her attack an hour early. Mahora Academy quickly becomes a surprisingly non-lethal war zone, magic disruption blasts exchanged with clothes-stripping energy beams and time-displacement bullets. Powers and Abilities *'Hand-to-Hand Combat': Negi has become an adept combatant thanks to his training with Ku Fei; his skills became sharper from actual combat experience with adversaries such as Kotaro and Fate. *'Intellectual Ability': Negi has shown himself to be intelligent, analytical, perceptive, and deductive. As a teacher, Negi's grades are near the top, despite his work as a mage in training. Aside from that, Negi appears to be able to determine the pattern of his opponent's battle methods and correctly deduce a proper counter-strategy to defeat his opponent's attacks. Negi's intellect is one of the key skills of his leadership abilities. It was Negi who came up with the plan to defeat Chao using the entire school. *'Magical Prowess: '''Negi has shown time and time again that he is talented at using advanced spells and incantation like Thousand Thunderbolts and techniques like Magica Erebea. He is also an expert at developing new spells and new ways of using old spells. He is also an expert at delayed spells. Negi has a strong affinity for wind and lightning magic. He is well known for using wind and lightning magic and can learn spells of these elements perhaps faster than anything else. And can easily become extremely efficient in using them. He mastered the high level long range spell Jupiter's Storm of Thunder which combines both wind and lightning magic before he had any combat experience or training. Also, his affinity for wind and lightning element give him speed and reflexes (respectively) beyond that of a normal human being. *Physical Ability: Even before learning Chinese martial arts, Negi has repeatedly shown himself to be a very agile fighter. Negi has demonstrated great reflexes in battle, able to quickly dodge a strike with no wasted effort and he can instantly counterattack right after. He is able to strike quickly without warning and in rapid succession. His speed also allows him to follow the movements of faster opponents to better analyze their movements or blocking difficult and otherwise fatal strikes. *'Sword Combat Specialist': Negi has been shown using a short sword several times, and wields Asuna's artifact, the ''Ensis Exorcizans, with sufficient skill. Appearances *''Future Perfect: Chao Lingshen's Tale'' *''I Am ODST: Memoirs of a Student-Soldier'' *''The Inquisition Mahora Epilogue'' *''Kuro Arashi: The Black Storm'' *''PokéFiends'' *''The Unsung War'' Category:Ala Alba Category:Kuro Arashi Protagonists Category:Mages Category:Mahora Faculty Category:Negima! Magister Negi Magi